I am convinced that animals can tell time. They know meal time and they know bed time. They know milking time and play time. They know when I’m late – and seem to enjoy letting me know that they know!
They definitely know breeding time. It’s late August and my boys are coming into “rut”. Biology drives breeding seasons. Biology takes over my gorgeous, sweet BBFs (Best Buck Friends) from August to December. I have taken all the pretty photographs of Captain Jack and Sgt. Pepper that I will get for this season. I know what is coming next…it might be nice for a girl goat, but I am not a goat – and bucks in rut are very extra stinky!
You might not know this about male goats, but they like to smell good for the ladies. Since they can’t get out to Macy’s or even Walmart to pick up the latest Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren, they go with something closer to home, or rather, homemade. I guess it’s really “goat-made” since their “go-to spray” is their own urine. Yes, I really said that.
They will spray themselves throughout the Fall and into Winter. They will spray their faces until their soft white fur is yellow and matted. They will spray their legs until the skin is scalded and I am doing all I can to support their skin integrity and keep them comfortable. I can’t make them stop. I can only help them through the rut season with gallons of A&D ointment, herbal skin salves – and give them a bubble bath (or ten) in the Spring.
We can do that, you know. We can make choices that bring us pain. We can be headstrong about maintaining a behavior that isn’t best for us – or reflective of God’s best for us. We can even suffer along a path for a LOT longer than God ever intended for our stubborn self.
The beauty of pain is not the pain itself – nor is it our heroic level of pain tolerance. No, nothing like that is beautiful. The beauty is the God who loves us through it. In case you have been misinformed…God is not pointing a bony finger at you trying to shame you for your choices or mistakes. THAT is definitely the enemy, not our God.
God is the one who offers the healing salve and prepares the bubble bath. HE is the one who lifts our weary heads and brushes tears from our eyes. He heals, He loves, He makes us clean and even better, He makes us NEW. What an awesome God.
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.He determines the number of stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit. The Lord sustains the humble (“God puts the fallen on their feet again” – from The Message) but casts the wicked to the ground.” Psalm 147:2-6
